As the popularity of video games grows, and more games are offered in the marketplace, video game developers continue to push for innovative game play. In the strategy video game realm, one growing type of game is the real-time strategy (RTS) game. In an RTS game, players may initially be given control over a small number of characters or units on a map, and may direct the characters to eventually grow a civilization with many characters and, often, to obliterate other players' characters. Commands may be given to the characters to move to certain places, collect certain resources on the map, build structures (e.g., houses, farms, etc.), or battle characters belonging to competing players, and the player may watch as the characters carry out those commands in real time. For example, each action may require a certain amount of time to perform (e.g., 5 seconds, 10 seconds, etc.), and the onscreen characters may be animated to show them performing the command (e.g., walking around the map, chopping wood, etc.).
The strategy comes in deciding what commands to give to the characters, and when. Some players may choose to quickly build an army of inexpensive military units, while other players may choose to spend more time improving their technological resources, so that their eventual military units may be more effective in battle.
The RTS game typically ends when one player's characters are successful in destroying the other players' characters and/or the various structures that those other players built (e.g., their own houses, villages, etc.). At the conclusion of the game, the game may provide the player with a statistical rundown of how the player fared, and the player may then choose to start a new game from the beginning.
As noted above, video game developers continue to develop new features for their games, and it would be an advance in the art if further new and innovative features could be developed for the RTS genre.